Product category:
Tool and cutter grinding
News Release from: Walter GB | Subject: Woodtronic Rapide CNC5 D sawblade grinding machine
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 20 March 2003
Saw blade companies have to invest in
CNC
Miguel Arce reckons saw blade companies that do not invest in the latest technology will struggle to stay in business, let alone remain competitive.
Miguel Arce reckons saw blade companies that don't invest in the latest technology will struggle to stay in business, let alone remain competitive As finance director of NLS Tools, a company that has spent more than GBP 500,000 on its shopfloor over the past four years, he is equally adamant that the company's latest acquisition - a Walter Woodtronic Rapide CNC5 D tungsten carbide tipped circular saw blade grinding machine - is one of the wisest investments he's made
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 20 Jun 2001 at 8.00am (UK)
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"The Woodtronic Rapide is unrivalled in terms of its speed and flexibility of operation," he points out, "and that is proving indispensable in saw blade regrinding - a business dominated by one-offs." Suggesting that most high-technology regrinders are comparable in terms of cycle times and finish quality, Miguel Arce also says "most use oil coolant and most clamp hydraulically.
But what makes the Woodtronic Rapide so different is the fact that the machine's non-cutting time is minimised".
It achieves this through a combination of innovative features: * The automatic load/unload three-pallet Loader system enables up to 60 blades of different diameter to be processed unmanned in any pre-selected order and, if required, overnight in lights-out fashion; * With sophisticated NC indexing and probing, the variable blade sizes and types can be quickly identified without affecting processing speed; and * Programming is so user-friendly that entering resharpening data for any new blade is simple and quick.
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Miguel Arce, the third generation head of the family-run business founded by his grandfather 75 years ago on saw blade production, has not only seen the company capitalise on its saw blade expertise but also expand into carbon steel and bi-metal bandsaw blades (it is the sole UK distributor for Hakansson) as well as a broad range of moulding tools including knives and circular cutters.
With 50 employees spread over two sites in Waltham Cross, Hertfordshire, NLS Tools produces saw blades and cutting tools for customers in a wide range of industries and for varying uses, including joinery and furniture production, panel processing, wood, plastics and aluminium and other non-ferrous metals, as well as bandsaw blades for cutting wood, metal, meat and fish.
In addition to a standard range of tungsten carbide tipped (TCT) circular saw blades, NLS Tools also manufactures special-purpose blades up to 920mm diameter for cutting alloys, as well as polycrystalline diamond tipped saw blades and custom-made drills, boring bits, counterbores and countersinks for panel processing and furniture production.
It also manufactures a range of economy TCT saw blades for applications where high precision or performance is not required.
Saw blade resharpening is an important part of the business, with four vans making daily collections and deliveries throughout the UK's Home Counties.
And while a large part of NLS Tools' recent investment has been in blade production machinery and equipment - including a laser cutting centre for the production of blade blanks and a robot-loaded production line - it was to transform the company's resharpening operations that the Walter Woodtronic Rapide was installed, as Miguel Arce explains.
"With a series of older manual machines, we needed to invest in a modern resharpener to maintain our competitive edge in terms of gaining all-round process efficiencies as well as achieving regrinds of the highest quality.
"We didn't look at any other machine than the Walter; I knew nothing could match the Woodtronic's flexibility in terms of being able to process varying blades - through its use of the Loader in conjunction with its indexing and probing functionality - in addition to its easy-to-use and fast programming.
"Because everything we handle is effectively a one-off, and a third of the blades that come in for resharpening are 'new' to us, it is impossible to accurately predict what needs to be resharpened on a day-to-day basis.
"Combined, these machine features minimise our non-cutting times - in particular, the Loader also enables us to process blades overnight - and, as result, we can compete with the best in terms of quality, cost and speed of turnaround." Supplied by Walter GB of Redditch, the Woodtronic Rapide promises tooth production routines of up to 30 per cent faster than previously possible, partly due to developments in the Walter Window Mode control software.
Featuring Walter's Free programming package, this allows operators to quickly and easily create programs for any tooth shape and combinations of tooth shapes within the specified diameter.
In addition, optional cross slide functionality on the machines' saw blade indexing unit enables tooth pitch variations to be automatically calculated very quickly, thus reducing set-up times when machining batches of blades of varying diameter.
"Because we don't have to precisely specify rake and clearance angles every time, since the probe 'sorts these out', it all makes life a lot easier for the operator and makes it harder to make mistakes", comments Miguel Arce.
Designed to process teeth faces and tops, the Woodtronic Rapide can handle circular saw blades of 80mm to 850mm diameter, up to 12mm thick and with tooth pitches of 4mm to 125mm.
Grinding spindle drive is 1.1 kW producing spindle speeds of 3,000 rev/min and cutting speeds of 26m/sec.
The use of linear guideways and ballscrews coupled with three-phase servo motors having closed loop positional control ensure consistent high-precision grinding.
The machine is supplied as standard with a series of software programs covering all tooth blade geometries - including the Brunswick geometry, where all types of deflection shoulders and chip grooves can be ground.
Fitted with three-pallet Loader, up to 60 saw blades of 150mm to 600mm diameter (680mm, optionally) can be accommodated, and the Loader can be pre-programmed without interrupting a grinding operation, thus minimising downtime and increasing utilisation and output.
NLS Tools' new Woodtronic Rapide complements an existing Walter Woodtronic NC4 saw blade regrinder, which until recently has been used for production purposes.
However, this is currently being transferred to the servicing sector, so every saw blade will in future be resharpened on a Walter.
"Like any saw blade regrinding company, we want to be able to do as much as possible as quickly as possible," concludes Miguel Arce.
"The Woodtronic Rapide is enabling us to do exactly that - compared with a manual regrinder, a typical blade is now resharpened in only 12 minutes compared with 50 minutes.
It's just a shame that within a couple of years, most of our competitors will have the same machine, too!".
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